Harvest 2019 situation ‘pretty demoralising after another weekend of rain’

“We had 5mm of rainfall on Sunday, more than we were expecting which messed things up,” he said.

“We’d had 20-30mm the other week and the high winds on Saturday had dried it out but we were back to square one on Sunday.”

Farming near Huntingdon, in Cambridgeshire, Mr McKenzie says even if wheat is slightly above the required moisture level, he may cut some today.

He said: “If we lose the following couple of days at least we will have got it in to dry.”

Heavy rain

Wheat crops were battered with heavy rain and 40-50mph winds at Tom Martin’s farm near Peterborough, leading to some crops falling over, and putting a halt to harvest.

He said: “We lost some Dunston feed wheat, and Revelation has lodged in a small number of places. Our Zyatt is down in places too but not flat.”

Quality is also starting to demise as the wet weather continues.

Mr Martin said: “Some grain is starting to chit in the ear and some rot is setting in, but that is to be expected.

“It has been ripe for nearly three weeks and it has gone wet and dry every second or third day so it is very poor conditions for keeping wheat and malting barley quality.”

Despite this, early wheat yields have topped the five-year average of 8.6t/ha, with the first field of KWS Zyatt yielding 10t/ha, and second wheat yielding 8.5t/ha at 16 per cent moisture.